Election Day is almost here and Wisconsin has hit record numbers for early voting. With the influx of ballots also comes questions from voters. That’s why election clerks are making sure poll workers are trained and prepared for any challenges they might face.
At Hales Corners Village Hall, volunteer poll workers gather in a dark board room. Village administrator and clerk, Sandy Kulik, points a flashlight at each familiar face that walks in. A power outage hit the village just before the training session began. But Kulik rolls with it.
Before volunteers sit down, they grab handouts detailing what happens to ballots, which photo IDs can be accepted, and a list of the top ten things Wisconsin poll workers should know. Kulik explains to volunteers some of the misconceptions election workers hear:
"That’s why I gave you that cheat sheet on what happened to my ballot because that’s the biggest thing that’s going on followed by Donna’s question: illegal aliens are voting. No they’re not. They have to register with that document so I don’t believe any of that happens," she says. "I believe that if there’s a problem with the registration process it would be outside of anything that we’re doing."
Kulik reminds volunteers not to have political discussions during their shifts and gives tips based on her experience with early voting this election. She's been fielding questions from voters about election conspiracy theories and denying void driver licenses.
"Be respectful and kind," Kulik says. "I’ve been getting abused for nine days and I’m still smiling at them and they don’t know what to do with it. That’s fine. I don't care. We’ve got countless hours of training. I’ve been at this for 28 years. I worked 2008, which was a nightmare of paper. We’ll get through this one too. It’s COVID-lite. In 2020 I had 4,000 absentee ballots and 800 in-person voters. It’s going to be probably over 3,000, my guess would be."
Kulik says she only takes on seasoned volunteers during presidential elections and welcomes newcomers to train during other elections. She describes the importance of people volunteering and understanding the election process:
"To understand, it’s huge," she says. "Learning what we do and all the checks and balances that they didn’t know about. Before, none of these people would’ve asked these questions a few years ago. We’ve told them what happens to the ballots. We’ve told them how difficult it is to get fraudulent addresses through and that sort of a thing."
In the North Shore, at Grafton Village Hall, clerk Kaity Olsen, has also been working hard to train volunteers for elections.
"We’re only required to give them an hour of training every term, which is two years, but they get training before every election," Olsen says. "We make sure that they are fully trained and we are fully staffed."
Olsen says voters ask questions like if they’re registered to vote, which ward they live in and what to do if they’ve lost their absentee ballot.
"It’s just a lot of people are wondering what the process is because they’ve never really known what the process is," she says. "No one’s ever asked what the process is. Unless you actually work an election, I don’t know how you would know these things. I would encourage everyone to work an election, so they know what actually happens at one."
Olsen considers Grafton to be a safe place with good people, but still, her biggest concern for Election Day is safety.
"We receive a lot of alerts from state departments saying that there’s threats out there," Olsen says.
Grafton is collaborating with the police department for safety training procedures and will have an officer present on Election Day. Olsen says there’s a lot of mistrust in the election process now. That mistrust increased since Republican former President Donald Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen.
"After the 2020 election, people don’t trust that their elections are secure, which I guarantee that they absolutely are," Olsen says. "Wisconsin has one of the best election systems."
For Olsen in Grafton and Kulik in Hales Corners, being a clerk and administering elections isn’t easy, but it’s an important job.
